The United States must take stronger action against China, former US ambassador to the United Nations and potential 2024 Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley has said.
In a closed-door meeting with members of the Republican Study Committee (RSC) on Wednesday, Haley told House conservatives that China is determined on achieving global domination, adding: “'If they take Taiwan, it's all over.”
Haley, who served as former Republican President Donald Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, said China is seeking to take control of Taiwan and seize other territories around the globe.
She urged Washington to take stronger action against China and start with organizing a boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing with allies like India, Australia, Japan, South Korea and Canada.
“The last Olympics that they had [in 2008] was their coming out. That's how they saw it. They were introducing themselves to the world. This next Olympics, if it goes unscathed, this is their way of showing that they are now the superpower of the world,” Haley told nearly 70 GOP lawmakers in the basement of the Capitol.
“And if we don't boycott, if we don't do something to really call them out, mark my words: Taiwan is next. And if they take Taiwan, it's all over, because they will think that gives them free rein to grab any territory, not in the region, but anywhere they want to go.”
The 49-year-old former South Carolina governor also denounced the recent joint statement from US President Joe Biden and other Group of Seven leaders as extremely weak, arguing the G-7 instead should have established that Taiwan is a “sovereign country.”
China considers Taiwan, the self-governed island, which is also called Chinese Taipei, as part of its own territory. Beijing has grown increasingly assertive in recent months after the new US administration’s attempts to interfere in Taiwan.
According to reports, the administration of President Joe Biden has concluded that China "is flirting with the idea of seizing control of Taiwan as President Xi Jinping becomes more willing to take risks to boost his legacy."
Biden, according to a recent Financial Times report, has made it his mission to reinvigorate America’s alliances and mobilize them for a new purpose: competition with China.
Washington also recognizes the Chinese sovereignty over the island, but it has antagonized Chinese officials by selling weapons to Taiwan, bypassing Beijing, and also backing the secessionist Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen.
Last month, a US warship passed through the strategically-sensitive Taiwan Strait, which separates self-ruled Taiwan from mainland China, second such provocative move since Biden assumed office.
Following the American military move, China said the United States threatens the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait.
The US Navy confirmed that the Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer USS Curtis Wilbur sailed through the waters near Chinese Taipei.
Chinese military forces tracked and monitored the ship throughout its voyage, said a spokesman for China's Eastern Theater Command, who also condemned the move.
He said Washington's "actions send the wrong signals to Taiwan (Chinese Taipei) independence forces, deliberately disrupting the regional situation and endangering peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait."
China has sovereignty over the self-ruled Chinese Taipei, and under the "One China" policy, almost all world countries recognize that sovereignty. But successive US administrations and other Western governments have been courting officials in Chinese Taipei in an attempted affront to Beijing.
The US has been selling weapons to Chinese Taipei and staging shows of military force around it. More recently, the US has facilitated easier diplomatic contact with the self-ruled island, in violation of Chinese sovereignty and its own stated policy.
China has in response ramped up military patrols and drills near the self-ruled island in recent months, asserting its sovereignty.
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